Recorded statements from defendant in Newark schoolyard slayings are played at trial

Alexander Alfaro is escorted from the courtroom at the end of the morning session during the trial of Alexander Alfaro at the Essex County Courthouse in Newark. Alfaro is charged in the Aug. 4, 2007 killing of three college students behind the Mount Vernon School in Newark. Looking on is defense attorney Raymond Morasse (left).
John O'Boyle /The Star-Ledger

NEWARK — Prosecutors at the trial of a young man charged in the schoolyard triple killings are now playing the portion of a recorded interview with the defendant, Alexander Alfaro, in which he identifies his co-defendants in the case.

Alfaro was 16 at the time he was interviewed on Aug. 18, 2007, just days after the three college-bound friends were robbed then fatally shot and a fourth injured behind Mount Vernon School.

Alfaro identifies four of the other five defendants charged in the killing from photo arrays Newark Police Detective Kevin Lassater showed him that day, including his half-brother Rodolfo Godinez, and his cousin, Gerardo Gomez.

Lassater is now on the witness stand in Superior Court, as the recording is being played. Alfaro signed all the photographs in which he identified the defendants, Lassater told Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Romesh Sukhdeo in court today.

Alfaro admits he “took money from victims of four, two males, two females." Lassater is heard reading that statement on the recording, which Alfaro had written out.

The defendant also described another defendant, Jose Carranza, as the gunman, saying "he shot all victims in the head with the .357, one time each." Lassater is also heard reading that part out loud in the recording.

The schoolyard victims were all shot with a Colt Trooper .357 revolver that night, ballistics and forensic tests showed. Iofemi Hightower and Dashon Harvey, both 20, and Terrance Aeriel, 18, were lined up against a wall and shot in the back of the head. Terrance's sister, Natasha Aeriel, then 19, was shot in the face but survived.

Prosecutors last week played a portion of the tape in which Alfaro described the killings, and admitted to using a machete on one of the victims. While he identified Jose Carranza as the gunman, another defendant, Melvin Jovel, pleaded guilty last year to being the lone gunman. Godinez was convicted at a trial. Both men received life sentences.

Alfaro's cousin, Nancy Ramirez, testified on Thursday that he went to her home in Orange a day after the killing and admitted his involvement. She also said Alfaro admitted his involvement in the Central American gang known as MS-13, which prosecutors say was the motivating factor behind the attacks.
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